nengo_gui

HTML5 graphical interface for Nengo. This lets you see a Nengo model while you are constructing it. It also integrates Nengo Viz, a tool for visualizing and interacting with a running Nengo model.

Requirements

• Python (tested with Python 2.7 and Python 3.4)
• Nengo (which also requires NumPy)

Installation

To install the GUI, you need to download and install the code in this repository. For most operating systems, here are the commands needed:

git clone https://github.com/nengo/nengo_gui
cd nengo_gui
python setup.py develop --user
cd ..

Note that this assumes you already have Nengo installed.

The GUI will work on its own, but it is more useful with the visualizer as well, so you can actually see what is going on. Full instructions are available here, but these are the basics:

git clone https://github.com/nengo/nengo_viz
cd nengo_viz
python setup.py develop --user
cd ..

Running Nengo GUI

We run the Nengo GUI using the command nengo_gui. You can run this from the command prompt, or by double-clicking on the nengo_gui executable. On Windows, this is likely in a directory such as C:\Python27\Scripts\nengo_gui.exe.

Optional Alternate Visualizer

For backwards compatibility, Nengo GUI also supports the old Java-based visualizer. To install this, we need to download the old Java-based version of Nengo. Here are the instructions:

• Download this file.
• Unzip the file

Note that you do have to have Java installed on your computer for this to work. Finally, you need to install RPyC, which allows the editor and the visualizer to communicate.

pip install rpyc

To use this visualizer, you must start the javaviz-server before starting Nengo GUI. This is a program that will sit in the background and handle the visualization system. Do this by going to the directory where you unzipped the old Java-based version of nengo and running javaviz-server.bat (on Windows) or ./javaviz-server (on Unix/Mac).

A text window should pop up and a line like INFO:SLAVE/18812:server started on [127.0.0.1]:18812 should appear. Now you can run nengo_gui as discussed above.

Basic usage

To view a Nengo model, run nengo_gui from the command line. You can load scripts from the nengo_gui/scripts folder from within the gui.

Using nengo_gui

If you're using nengo_gui, then click the top right button to run the interactive visualizer. (You can do this right away with the default network that loads, as a quick example). If you don't see the visualizer window, it may be hidden in the background; find it in your OS's window bar.

For the new Nengo Viz visualizer, see the usage instructions available here.

For the old Java visualizer, right click on the background of the visualizer to pick things to see; right click on the things to pick data to plot. Items can be dragged to be moved around and resized by the edges. Plots can be customized by right-clicking on them. The play button in the bottom-right starts the simulation.

Alternative usage

You can pass nengo_gui a script to visualize, if desired.

nengo_gui my_nengo_script.py